We had previously mentioned that the iPad is pending approval on the wifi+3g model in some areas of the country. And to top it off they don’t even have the online domains for the iPad. (iPad.com doesnt belong to apple). And now we find out that Apple is locked in a trademark battle for the name iPad itself. Apparently, it has been quite some time since this war has been going on, September 2009 to be precise. Fujitsu has apparently been selling its own version of the iPad since 2002 and applied for a trademark in 2003. The trademark was specifically applied for a hand held device that costs 2000 USD. This was put on the back burner as another company called Mag-Tek had already applied and registered for IPAD trademark(their IPADs are keypads to enter PINs). In April 2009, Fujitsu’s application was officially moved to the “abandoned” list. Fujitsu immediately asked for the reopening of the trademark application, their argument was that since the products are in completely different domains, they had nothing to do with each other.The USPTO reopened the application and this went on till September 2009. Enter Apple : and they filed for their own trademark of iPad and they did this using a shadow firm called “IP Application Development”.
It is so weird that Apple has announced the iPad in the US without registering a trademark or buying the necessary domains. Legally, Apple won’t be able to snatch the iPad trademark from Fujitsu just because it has already made an announcement. Infact Fujitsu has also started advertising on Google adwords, for it’s handheld device just to make a point that it has a trademark pending for the iPad. The most likely solution would be an amicable settlement between Fujitsu and Apple with both deciding to share the name. Just like it happened with the case of iPhone with Cisco. Apple’s zest for secrecy seems to have it’s share of repurcussions.
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This is really a big issue but all I can say is that Ipad is a very helpful and hightech gadget that everybody enjoys.
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Monday, March 1, 2010
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